Colorado weather: Spring storms roll through the Front Range, with more to come

By Yesenia RoblesThe Denver Post

Posted:
05/20/2014 02:44:08 PM MDT

Tuesday's afternoon thunderstorms, which brought hail and a tornado warning to the Denver area, was only the beginning of a stormy stretch for Colorado.

"The end of May is one of the peak times for severe weather until about the first two weeks of June," said National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Kalina. "It's really active around here."

The National Weather Service expects a chance of thunderstorms every day the rest of the week. After reaching a high in the mid-70s on Wednesday, the Denver area has a 50 percent chance of severe thunderstorms.

A severe thunderstorm watch for almost all of the Front Range and parts of the Plains remained in effect until 9 p.m. Tuesday and new watches are expected to be issued Wednesday.

"It's hard to say if Denver will be hit, but it could be very active," Kalina said. Storms could be more severe and more widespread than Tuesday, he added.

On Tuesday, scattered storms dumped inches of hail in some spots, damaging new gardens and cracking some windshields while also causing problems on the roads and at the airport.

Kalina said the largest hailstones were reported two miles northeast of Deer Trail, where spotters saw baseball-sized hail.

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At 5 p.m., after the worst of the storms had passed, Heath Montgomery, a spokesman for Denver International Airport, said 32 Denver-bound flights had been diverted. Most were sent to Colorado Springs. Many other flights were delayed.

Captain Harold Foss of the Aurora Fire Department's Station 15, said fire crews had to rescue a woman who's car got trapped in high water on Gun Club Road. Crews were able to get the woman out of her car and then pulled the vehicle to drier land.

Aurora, and Arapahoe County were under a tornado warning for about half an hour as funnel shaped clouds surrounded the area, but no touch-downs were reported.

In the University Hills neighborhood, Beth Graham was sweeping up leaves that fell on her sidewalk after the hail storm had passed.

At the height of the storm, "you could hear it crashing on the skylight but no windows were broken," she said. Graham was relieved that her tomato plants had escaped damage.

At the light rail station on East Yale Avenue, hail was piled up on windshields and cars were covered with leaves, but damage appeared minimal.

"I couldn't believe how much there was," Susan West said. "It kept going and going."

The storm shredded West's newly planted tomatoes and onions. West had unplanted the tomatoes for the Mother's Day snow storm and replanted them on Saturday.